A giant is moving into Brooklyn’s quiet Park Slope neighborhood, and some nearby residents and business owners have reservations.
The Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurant chain, known for its roadhouse-style meats and southern sides, has applied for a liquor license at 604 Union Street in Park Slope, where it hopes to open a new restaurant early next year. The Brooklyn Community Board 6’s Permits and Licenses Committee held a meeting for public comment on the liquor license application last Monday. While most board members support the application, some residents and business owners aren’t so sure the new eatery will be good for the neighborhood.
David Kabasso, the owner of Ortov Electrical Supply, located next door to Dinosaur’s future home, worries that the new restaurant will bring a serving of rats with it. He said it took him nearly two years and several self-maid contraptions to get an earlier vermin problem under control.
“When we came to this place, we had a rat problem for a long, long time — for over 10 years,” said Kabasso. After ordinary traps and bait didn’t work, Kabasso was fed up. First, he said he set up traps for them to fall into buckets of water and drown but decided it was too cruel. Next, the electrical wiring expert said he began to build a machine to shoot the rats back into the street when he realized it might scare pedestrians. Ultimately, he said, he found a simpler solution. “No food, no water. I decided to starve them to death.”
He began to store all food and trash in steel containers and keep the toilets closed with a brick, so “[the rats] cannot jump out or jump in to drink.” Now Kabasso worries that with a smoke house barbeque joint next door, his business will once again become a hotel for the vermin.
Dinosaur’s founder, John Stage, acknowledged locals’ concerns about rats in a telephone interview after the community board meeting.
“Let’s be real here,” said Stage, who has opened four other restaurants since 1998 when he launched his first Dino’s in Syracuse, N.Y. “Rats are all over New York City. Every restaurant faces the same challenges.”
But he added that his restaurant is very aggressive in managing the issue. “We store all garbage in a refrigerated room until collection time and we follow all sanitation codes.”
Rats aren’t the only concern for the new restaurant’s neighbors. If the crowds pour in like any restaurant owner would hope, the whole dynamic of the block could change.
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